High Rite
by Vivi Marius
Summary: Sherlock doesn't need religion, not when he has this.


Sherlock doesn't need religion, not when he has this. This is the whirr and hum and purr of his thoughts. This is soft whispers of clues and leads. This is puzzle pieces slotting together because they were made to writhe together in mindful ecstasy. This is the gleaming marble of his mind palace, leading himself down paths so labyrinthine that it is impossible for non-believer to follow him.

This is why he lays on the couch, his fingers steepled in prayer. Sherlock is praying; not that anyone would recognize that. His thoughts are the mantras of Tibetan monks, one hundred and eight repetitions precisely, swirling in endless loops of beads in a spiraling whirl of adjusting deduction. They are the soft songs of nuns, rising above the tedium to give the people something different; something extra; something absolutely divine. They are the careful rituals of centuries, millions of hundreds of candles flickering with the soft breaths of murmured benedictions. They are communion with the world and with himself.

He lays his body to rest at the temple's steps to prostrate himself to the deity of deduction. His mind can race through the halls of memories and find exactly what he needs when he needs it. This is what made Sherlock devout; what drives him to stop and surrender his body to the world while he attends to his god. He regularly sweeps the floors and polishes the silver; slaving himself to his mind. His body can suffer. His body deserves to suffer to tend to his maker.

Sherlock needs to turn his face to the sun of his thoughts, bathe in their attentions, catch and hold each one before kissing it with reverence and releasing it. And when the beautiful moment of synergy approaches where the scene folds together like fingers threaded in prayer, the divine thought will reach out to him, tilt its head and wait for Sherlock to approach. It will whisper in his ear, cup the back of his head, kiss his forehead, and pull away. Having received the blessing, Sherlock is free to share it with the world.

The world that does not, could not, understand devotion like he does. He can see so clearly how many people pretend to be dedicated to their so-called gods while deliberately ignoring their creeds and manifestos in their day to day lives. Sherlock gets pitied for his commitment because people cannot understand true selfless sacrifice to a higher power. He fasts in his devotion and is scolded like an errant child, whereas others attend services once a year and are deemed religious. They are committed to nothing more than themselves. Of course a figment of their imagination would command no loyalty.

Sherlock knows what real, pure calling feels like in the marrow of his bones and the blood of his erroneous body, and perhaps that is why he scares people. They do not comprehend because they haven't embraced a full devotion to their minds. Sometimes Sherlock tries to work at them, get them to convert, but they all shy away. He can see that they are afraid of absolute faith; their mortal minds cannot juggle themselves the way he can. And then they wonder why Sherlock turns away from them; why he shuns them. What does their ignorance matter, those who will never be able to open themselves to the divine energy of thought? They will never be able to achieve the fantastic heights that Sherlock has reached in his dogged pilgrimage to his mind palace. Only he is worthy of such almighty ecstasy.

So it is his task and his alone to scrub the floors and tend the gardens. He must do the upkeep to earn the awe-inspiring communion with his thoughts. Later, they will be put to their secular uses, transmuted into tools that can cause one person's world to crumble into decimated pieces, that can breathe life into cases long dead, that can separate the mundane from the important and tell the difference between guilty and not, but for now, this is all he seeks: his hands folded in benediction to the only creator Sherlock needs; his Almighty Mind.

* * *

A small drabble of Sherlock's religious tendencies inspired by ProfessorFangirl's line from The Mind-Body Problem: "On the sofa, immobile, his body straight and utterly still. Hands palm-to-palm, fingertips resting on his lips, an attitude of prayer to no deity but thought." Many thanks to thisprettywren for looking over this lyrical bit of self-indulgence and smoothing over it just right.


End file.
